indie publishing

This weekend marks the one year anniversary of my debut novella Emma’s Story. It’s only a year, but it feels like a very long time ago, and for sure I’ve come a long way since that day.

I’ve published four more books, with a fifth one due out in two weeks. I’ve quit my day job to focus on my writing, and – I believe – I’ve grown a lot as a writer. Perhaps most of all, I’m much more confident in my stories.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have doubts. They’re just not quite as a bad they used to be.

Emma’s Story is where it started though, and the story will probably always be extra special to me. Three years in the making, countless revisions (well, seven or eight or so), and a large number of changes back and forth, while at the same time trying to figure out how to tell a story in the first place.

It did eventually get done though, and a year ago, I published it.

One thing I’ve been asked is if there will be a sequel. The story ends with a few questions unanswered, and people are curious to know what happens next.

The answer is that I don’t plan on writing a sequel to Emma’s Story any time soon. It would be fun to get back to her and write about what happened next, but there are a lot of things I still need to figure out myself first.

That said, I’m going to be rewriting an old, never published, novel called Enar’s Vacation, and in doing so, I’ll have an opportunity to reveal what really happened to Emma after Emma’s Story ended.

I don’t yet have a specific time frame for when Enar’s Vacation will be out, but hopefully I’ll be started on it before the end of the year.

Finally, if you’ve read all this far, you’ve probably also read Emma’s Story already, but perhaps you know someone who hasn’t. This weekend, to celebrate the anniversary of the book, it’s on sale for $0.99/£0.99 on Amazon – here. Please let your friends know.

I’m also running an ad campaign on facebook over the weekend, and hopefully it’ll lead to some more people discovering the book. The horse in the image probably wasn’t intended to be Ussilago, but a friend of mine linked it to me, and it kind of works. The artist was kind enough to let me use her image.

Looks like it’s been forever and a half since I last posted anything here. In this case “forever” means about a month, or perhaps slightly more. Things have been busy, and the blog here hasn’t received much in the way of attention.

Among other things, I’ve published the third part in the Lost Dogs series: A Freak Among Freaks. It’s available on Amazon, here. I’ve also started work on parts four and five, and part four, Lost Naked Furious, is scheduled to be released on the 27th of November. It’s available for pre-order here.

Perhaps more importantly, I’ve created a new website dedicated exclusively to the Lost Dogs series, here:

It’s got information about the setting, the characters, and the story. It’s even got a page about me as the author of the books.

My ambition is to do a weekly post for the site, commenting on the world or the stories, or just sharing my progress as I work on the next book. Please head over and have a look. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

I received my first ever book-blog review. It’s awesome, and you can read it here.

This all came about due to random internet chance. Someone commented on my previous post about my cover issues, comparing the image in the post with one from an earlier post. Turns out they run a book blog, and that they’d found the description of my book intriguing.

I checked their site, offered them a free review copy of Lost Dogs #1, and they were happy to accept. A few days later the review appeared, and I couldn’t be happier. Sure, it’s four stars instead of five, but that doesn’t really matter compared to the actual review itself.

The critique against the book is fair. The reviewer loves MMA and romance, and would have liked to see more of it. It does say in the blurb that Roy (the main character) is a superstar wrestler (or something to that effect), but in the end the story really isn’t about the fighting. There also isn’t much shown of the back story between Roy and Toini (his love interest), but that’s something that’ll come up again in later parts. It’s fair to have been wanting more of those things.

The review mentions some other things as positives though, and that’s what makes me really happy, as those are things that are important to me and that I put a lot of pride and effort into. Again, check it out, here.

“Werewolf wrestler gets told he has to lose the last fight of his career or he won’t get any retirement money. There are complications.”

Today is the day. The ebook version of Lost Dogs #1: Last Fight of the Old Hound, is now available for purchase, here.

It’s a big deal for me, and it’s been a long time coming, so I’m quite excited now it’s finally here. Excited, and a little bit nervous.

I feel good about the book when I read it, and I have read it quite a few times. I just hope it’s good enough people will want to read the next part too, and the part after that, and so on. There will be a lot of parts.

I updated the blurb for the book. It’s now significantly longer, but I’m hoping it’s also better. Have a look:

As you can see, it’s longer, and it’s a bit difficult to read as it’s so much text, and the font is a bit weird. I’ll be tinkering around with the layout for a while, and I’ll update the text on the Amazon page, but I won’t update the paperback cover just yet.

Here we go, I finally have the cover image for my next book: Lost Dogs #1: Last Fight of the Old Hound.

Big thanks to Jess for the art. I’m really happy with how it turned out in the end.

As I’m looking at it now it strikes me as odd that I didn’t include the secondary title of the book on the front of cover. It’s not that I forgot about it (seriously, I didn’t). It just didn’t seem all that important.

It’s a series, and the name of the series feels more important than the names of the individual parts. As I recall, many TV series has a name for each episode, but few of them stick with me for longer than they appear on the screen. Then again, maybe that’s just me?

It also seemed like it might be tricky fitting that many words onto the cover. I’m sure I could have, and I actually tried (a little), but I didn’t work out (and I gave up pretty quickly). Instead it just says “Part 1” now, and like I mentioned, the title is written on the spine, and it says inside as well. It’ll be grand, as they say here in Cork.

With a little bit of good will, the blurry shape in the background looks kind of like a human heart, doesn’t it?

I used the same image, but significantly faded, for the back cover too. What mostly stressed me out about that was the blurb – again.

I thought I had a good blurb this time. I shared it in a previous post. Then, today, as I sat looking at it, I begun to feel like there was something off about it, and I began tinkering, and tinkering, and tinkering…

The idea is the same, and the first part is very similar, but the second part has been expanded upon. It’s a little bit clearer what the story is about, which is probably a good thing. Hopefully potential readers will find it interesting enough they’ll want to have a closer look.

Hopefully they’ll find it interesting enough to read the whole thing, and the next part, and the next one after that, and so on. This first book is a self contained story, but it’s also the start of something much bigger. After all, it does say Part 1, and I have a lot more parts planned.

So, when can you read the story?

Well, I pressed the Publish button for the paperback version about an hour and a half ago, and it’s currently in review. The review period can take up to 72 hours, meaning you should be able to order the book on Sunday by the latest. That is, if you want the paperback version. I’ll make sure to share the link once it’s available.

The e-book version is still scheduled for release on the 5th of July. You can pre-order it here (UK), or here (US).

The first book in the Lost Dogs series is now available for pre-order. It’s called Last Fight of the Old Hound, and you can pre-order it here (US) or here (UK). The cover image is a temporary one, and the real cover will be revealed once it’s done – in about two weeks.

Also, if you’re interested in checking out a sample of the story, you can download the first four chapters for free, here.

I’m going to try and not rant too much about this release, but rather focus my energy on making sure the next few parts come out in time. I’m still excited to publish a book, but all the advice I’ve heard about advertising suggests that the best way to promote a book is to write a sequel.

Once I have a few books out I’ll start looking into promoting the first one more carefully, and then I’ll have to start figuring advertising and suchlike.

For now though, there’s just the one book. Next one to be released Soon<tm>.